Morning awakenings can be rewarded with the soft cajoling warmth of April sunshine on the face, shedding light through eyelids closed.
I leave curtains drawn back, not to miss any opportunity.
There’s no hurry... I have no obligations for today, nor likely for the days ahead...so, I can choose to dream on - or fling back the covers, swing the aging legs … perhaps? …to greet new day!
It is quite likely, though, that I will reach out, through quiet peace, instead, unerringly pressing a button on my little radio, for BBC World Service. Partly in curiosity, partly wondering why I would make myself available to Trump’s daily Tweets, but also knowing that the top subject now, will explore the Coronavirus pandemic. Here are the reports, the discussions. In a contrary way, the flow of Interesting, free exchanges, experts speaking in so many fields, the news ... is a comfort.
This daily absorption, drifts back, I know, to days and times of great uncertainty, 20,30, 40 years ago, for me, in Africa. BBC news was soon banned for following and revealing questionable public disturbances soon after the country was handed Independence. Social media did not exist, then; local radio played Marshall music or weather reports. I owned a precious small short-wave radio, and was able to follow reports… issued from some 10 thousand miles away… of actual riots, murders, farm invasions - though not for long, before reporters were thrown out. A brave young local woman set up an independent radio station within a city hotel… so that, over days, we heard where city riots were moving or hurting. However, she was soon tracked, hunted down, threatened, and fled. For some years, she courageously led a small team from London, but was regularly blocked.
Later, I pounced on the new possibility of computer contact with the world, albeit via dubious internet connections...
African countries suffer on… the politicians more polished at diverting, rather than banning, now .... though infrastructure worsens.
In the coziness of English orderliness, I move on through my ‘self-isolation’ days, as the government Suggests - my living-room TV often on mute, but available. I am in satisfied confidence that via my iPad, almost every form of entertainment, communication, interest, will open up to me at the touch of another button.
No more hurrying to bus stops, city centres for contrived, it now seems, extra needs.
Longer excursions to London for the Arts and on-going treats in education, have been generously and miraculously replaced by ardent suppliers of panoramic viewing - to my armchair! Suddenly, too, I can see a sea of faces from all countries, as we are tipped into Zoom meetings. Amazing.
Now, it is a question of trimming the excess, to enjoy the newly recovered time, act, and wish for writing… That can mean notes for digital transfer, as well as mental challenges, whether as surreal as this imposed new world, or as real as embellished memories!
Birds and flowering trees, winds or clouds, play on, outside.
I tidy, sort, cook, inside- as preferred. Projects are attended to, or not. No one else, to say!
My mind has decided for me, for one thing, not to dwell or worry over the mysterious, moving, looming disaster in Africa. That would in no way help my semi-locked-down younger family members there… living on through bright days, glorious sunsets, - and serious shortages.
For the first time, though, in five weeks, some unsettling dreams for me… relating to, even containing the word Coronavirus, though focused locally, to other family members of the sensible and correct variety. Incidental associations float by, in daylight dreaming…
Perhaps many mornings, many strange days will move on, in various forms, for various people... towards inevitable adjustments and changes in this world. A shifting ratio in ages... and in values?
Who’s to know?
There might yet be more light out there for some of us, as well ... if we keep our windows and options open... while so many could need help to get up and see again...
Amai is an artist & designer who has lived Africa, Europe, now England.
